That Thin Line
by Lora Helen
Summary: They say there's a thin line between love and hate. What happens if you cross it? Can you ever go back to how things were before? What do you do if you want to... but he doesn't?  1x2 3x4
1. Unforgiven

_Hey there! It's been a fairly long while since I took a foray into the world of fanfiction, but I've had this chapter in the works for a little while now, as I have recently managed to slip back into this fandom pretty hard, so I just decided to pop it up to see what was made of it. I'm fairly certain my writing style has changed in the time I've been away, since I was last writing fanfic's seriously in...04 - 05 I think. But hey! It' can't hurt to try! So here we go._

**Disclaimer** - The standard of course, not mine.

**Warnings** - Homosexuality, or at least talking about it at this point. Angst I suppose?

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**That thin line.**  
_There's a very thin line between love and hate._

**Chapter One**** :: ****_Unforgiven_****_._**

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"I think I died the day you left me. " The words slipped as a quiet murmur from the downturned lips of Heero Yuy.

He knew it couldn't really be true. He couldn't have died a physical death. He could hardly be standing leant against a wall thinking these thoughts if he was really dead, at least he didn't think he could. On top of that he figured he'd probably feel a little different as well, being dead couldn't be the same as being alive. Then again... he didn't really feel very alive.

He had been talking very quietly, not really intending to speak the words aloud, but even his quiet, very distracted voice had been enough to catch the attention of his companion that day. Said companion was a man built more slightly than Heero was, with a softer frame, softer skin, softer hair and softer eyes. Soft eyes coloured somewhere between blue and green which were now fixed on him, a look of curiosity in them as they took in Heero's unusual mood.

"Oh Heero..." Quatre wished there was more he could say. "Try not to be so bleak."

The other young man ignored the blonde however.

"It's a beautiful day today, but I really don't care Quatre. Outside there are people walking and talking, arm in arm, hand in hand, wrapped up in each other. But I really don't care. There are so many smiling faces, we're only one floor up and yet you can still see right down to the street, you can hear them talking. They all sound so happy. But I really don't care."

"Heero... please be quiet." Not something he ever thought he would have to say to Heero Yuy. Though once again he was staunchly ignored by the other ex pilot. "This isn't going to help..." Quatre knew it was pointless to try. Currently his words were falling on deaf ears.

"Or maybe I do care. Maybe I care more than I want to admit." He shifted his pose to look right at the blonde. "In fact... I think I care so much that I hate them. Every single one of them."

"No Heero."

"I hate them for their smiles."

"They've done nothing wrong..."

"I hate them for their laughter."

"They're only living their lives."

"I hate them for their happiness and their love."

"Oh Heero please don't."

"I hate them all for having something I don't even care to want any more."

"They're just happy... they're enjoying the peace... I wish you could enjoy it as well."

"Well I can't. And I'm surprised you can either."

"Of course I can." The remark was delivered in a rather dismissive tone. "You know it's what I wanted for the world Heero, and I still believe it's what you want now even with all your talk of hate and disinterest. I still believe this is how you want the world to be."

"Of course you do Quatre. You'll always believe the best. It's a failing."

"No it's not. I have to believe it. I have to believe what happens is for the best. It's the only way to go through life with a smile."

"So stop smiling."

"No."

"Why not? It's annoying..." The darker haired young man turned to look out the window again, eyes fixed on the street, one dark blue and angry, the other cloudy, paler in colour, a white film covering the intense iris. One could see. One could not.

The blonde shifted himself up to his feet, moving over to his friend. "Because I like to smile. It makes me feel better... and I like to be able to smile for him when he's here." He reached a hand out to touch Heero's arm.

"Of course... think he likes your smile... though he never says it. He never tells you anything." Heero's tone was bitter. It often was on days like this.

"He doesn't have to... I understand him." Quiet word intended to explain slipped from the blondes' lips in response. They were only met with a cruel rebuttal though.

"You're pathetic." His tone was flat.

"I'm not. I'm in love." Once again, gentle understanding softened the reply.

"It's pathetic."

"Then you're just as bad as I am."

"...I know." Finally the deadpan voice softened again, as the young Asian turned his eyes back to Quatre. "I didn't mean to be cruel..."

"You did, but it's okay. I forgive you." Quatre replied. "I'll always forgive you."

"It's a bad day."

"I know."

"Every day's a bad day..." Heero's tone was drier than usual, the blonde chuckled very slightly.

"I know Heero. Every day since he left."

"I don't forgive him, you know that?"

"I know..."

"And you're only keeping me around because he asked you to." An accusatory note had touched his voice again.

"That's unfair." The words actually sounded a little upset.

"It's not. It's true. If he hadn't called you and asked you come, you wouldn't have. You wouldn't have known a thing."

"It was two years ago Heero, and I've not thrown you out have I? It's true that he did call me, and it is also true that if he hadn't I might not have come to find you... but it wasn't for his sake that I did... I was angry with him as well, for a very long time, and you know I still can't really accept his choice, but I have to keep trying."

"You think I should as well..." Heero's tone was laced with accusation.

"I think it would make you feel better if you didn't let it affect you so badly..." A very careful reply.

"And if you were me?" It wasn't so much a question as a demand.

"I know that if it was me, to this day I still wouldn't have stopped crying." Quatre's voice had fallen almost to a whisper as he answered Heero's demand.

"I never cried."

"I know you didn't. We're very different people Heero."

Heero sighed then, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, leaning slightly towards the smaller man, who lifted a hand to push Heero's hair from his eyes. The taller man shifted his head to the side, out of reach, so Quatre once again dropped his hand.

"You can't ask me to accept what he did if you wouldn't be able to Quatre." Heero stated, his tone almost tired. "We've had this conversation so many times, and every time you make yourself a hypocrite."

"I know." Quatre replied sadly, a bittersweet smile touching his lips. "And I'm sure it won't be the last time either, you know us. We're going end up having it again... I never know what else to say, so I say the same thing as the time before."

"Nothing you can say can make this any better Quatre." Heero's words were quiet again. "I don't know why you try."

"Oh Heero!" For just the barest moment the blonde actually sounded irritated with the Japanese man. "You know why! Because you're my friend for all that you're rude, hurtful and utterly awful to me sometimes." He gave the Asian a firm push in the arm, it was half serious, half an attempt at being playful. Heero had the grace to react to the shove and actually took a step away.

"I know... sorry. I just... last night..."

"You were dreaming again, weren't you? I thought that had stopped?"

"It has, mostly..." Heero's eyes were once again fixed on surveying the happy people walking up and down the street. Half way down it a couple were having a fight... they didn't register though, they'd make it up, they'd be fine again... happy. In love. "They just come back from time to time." Quatre was simply nodding at him, but all of a sudden even the blondes quiet presence was more than Heero could cope with, and he turned away, quite sharply from the window, bumping Quatre aside. "I'm going to read. Don't disturb me." His tone was utterly cold again, and rather harsh.

Quatre didn't fall however, this was... fairly normal. This was who Heero had become after the war. "Okay Heero." He stated as his friend reached the door that would take him out of the large living room and opened it, the blonde turned himself to go back to the sofa, but was halted by his name.

"Quatre...?"

"Yes Heero...?"

"Thank you."

"Ah... no problem Heero, enjoy your book." The door closed and Quatre settled himself down. Gosh Heero Yuy could be a difficult friend at times...He had been getting better though... up until the... incident. From then it was worse... but things had taken a real downwards spiral two years ago... the day Duo Maxwell left.

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_So there is the end of the first chapter. I'm going to write up more, hopefully at the weekend, as I'll probably post a few more chapters even if there's no real interest, just for the fun of it. But if you feel like dropping me a review, that is of course always welcome!_

_Thanks for reading!_

_Lora Helen. x_


	2. One side of the coin

_First off, I'd just like to say a very big thank you to my two lovely reviewers, thank you so much for dropping me a quick note, it does of course mean the world to me! And especially to you, SFA, for making me feel welcomed back and putting up with my chattering on MSN! Haha! You're a gem!_

_This is of course the second chapter of my randomly started Gundam Wing fic. It got… somewhat longer than I had intended it to, but I guess that happens sometimes! Anyway, of course standard disclaimers and previous warnings apply, with the possible addition of a bad language warning for some fairly extensive swearing in a couple of paragraphs._

_I think that's about all from me however! So let's get on with this_!

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**That thin line.**  
_There's a very thin line between love and hate._

**Chapter One****::**_**One side of the coin**_

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Once he was alone and without the need to speak another word Heero felt at once slightly more at ease, at least on a physical level. Talking was still a skill that he often found to be a little bit beyond him. It was just not something that he was able to easily lapse into. Opening up tended to be too difficult, and as a young man so accustomed to being truly excellent at everything he touched, such a difficulty tended towards making the Japanese man rather... well... irritable at best. And Heero's version of irritable tended towards being a little more like a 'blazing rage' under most normal definitions. He had at one point tried very hard to open up, but honestly those days were long gone... what he had now was a... vague... grasp of the concept, and a partial ability which would produce itself on occasions. Most times however his attempts were shot down by his own innate negativity.

Heero was aware that he was not an easy person to live with, but then he never had been. He'd not been an easy pilot to work with during the Wars, for all his skill and expertise, he'd been a very difficult teenager to be around and he'd grown into a very, very difficult young man. He was under no illusions to the contrary, in fact he would quite readily have labelled himself the most difficult person to live with on the planet earth, or any of her many, many outlying colonies.

That train of thought was just one testimony to the changes that had actually taken hold of Heero Yuy. With the passage years and the arrival of a time of peace, a peace which had cost him and his... friends a great deal had come a few changes to the stoic blue eyed young man. Memories, such a blessing and curse, he never really knew quite to make of them, then again, he never really knew how to treat thoughts and feelings, sensations which stirred the emotions and the emotions themselves. He didn't really know how to perceive them as anything but a flaw, a hindrance, a handicap.

He'd been a soldier, he'd been trained extensively from a very, very young age, and you could still see some of the youngster, the cold, steady, stoic and war ready fifteen year old boy in the slightly softened eyes of the young man, some ten years that boys senior that now hid himself away in his room, his fear of the feelings and emotions and what damage they could do forcing him to flee in ways that no battle ever had. He was afraid, he would never admit it, but he was... these days Heero Yuy was scared of a great many things, though very few of them were corporeal.

It hadn't always been that way however. During the War, endless fighting, endless violence and the tragic unnecessary deaths of more or less everyone who had gotten in their way had filled every waking moment with their perverse presence. During those horrendous times there had been very few people for 'The Perfect Soldier' to care about. It had been easy to shut himself off from the others, there had never been any difficulty in just sinking into his own mind and denying the necessity of anything but fighting and concentration, planning and personal performance. Of course there had been hiccups... four of them had made the biggest impact on his life, he had to reflect as he carefully shut the door, turning to rest his back against the white painted wood.

Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner and Wufei Chang, the four biggest hiccups he'd ever met. Some of course had been worse than others for upsetting his stoic life of single minded self control. Quatre and his constant worried kindness had made it hard to always been as shut off as he wanted to be, the little blonde was surprisingly persistent and had this... way... of just wheedling things out people when they weren't sure they wanted to spill the beans was on some level honestly intimidating, he was a good friend though... even in the midst of all the violence that he was so unsuited for he'd been a good friend. The other had been him... Duo Maxwell, bouncy, braided and boisterous, he was certainly something unexpected. He could also claim the title of the biggest shock to Heero Yuy's system to ever take place, even in comparison to the detonation of Wing Zero which had shattered the systems and cryptic information of the large winged Gundam into useless rubble around him. The memory of that explosion still affected him, he could still feel the pain, the shadow of its memory creeping through his body. Explosions really hurt...

Duo had been an unusual force in Heero's life which at the time had caused him a great deal of consternation and utter confusion. Duo smiled and seemed as happy as anything, but there were times when Heero wasn't certain of what he was seeing. Heero was undeniably gifted when it came to his perception and skills of observation. He could pick out any gun from a line in moments, he could see a person move tens of meters away and still shoot to kill through a haze. He could see anything, but Duo presented a conundrum. He could see something wasn't entirely as it seemed to be about the long haired loud mouth who served as the pilot of the Gundam Deathscythe, but he could never quite comprehend what it was, or why it would be in place at all. People simply eluded him. He had no need to understand them after all. Why should an assassin understand his target? What help would that be? He needed no friends, he had plenty of enemies, all he sought was death and destruction. But Duo was always there. So very, very there...

Heero was used to being able to keep people at some considerable emotional distance from himself, he didn't allow anything unnecessary to have a role in his life, he'd been taught very explicitly to avoid that happening, but Duo Maxwell was a force to be reckoned with, Heero had never encountered anyone like him before, and he had certainly never been taught how to deal with such an impulsive individual. From the moment they first met Duo would just show up. He was just so very... there... that even when he really, really tried Heero could not avoid seeing him, noticing him, getting ever so slightly distracted by him from time to time. Not in any particular way at first, just because of his outlandish and ridiculous behaviour. His antics caught the eye, his voice could be particularly loud and obnoxious if he wanted it to be, and it was just all round very hard to ignore the American and his tomfoolery.

With a quiet sigh Heero reigned in his turbulent mind. He had no desire to read any longer, all urges he'd had before to open a book had been utterly forced from him. His thoughts were affording him no peace and they'd do nothing to enable his concentration on any other task. Moments like this happened from time to time, he'd start to think and simply lose control of where his thoughts wandered. It was maddening. He'd never have this sort of trouble before. Since the end of the violence however there had been fewer and fewer things to distract his mind and keep his focus. With a rather absent expression on his face, Heero moved across his room to go and settle himself on the edge of his bed before just allowing himself to flop back into the clean, dark blue bedding. He couldn't read, but at the very least he could simply lay back and rest for a while. He honestly felt rather drained. He slept poorly more often than he slept well, and while he needed precious little sleep, even Heero Yuy needed some time to re-charge his batteries.

People had called him Perfect. The Perfect Soldier. He was adept at fighting, he could kill without a smear on his conscience, in fact it was quite possible he no longer had one. He could see a mission in simple black and white, his perceptions were never clouded by the muddled shades of grey. He did as he was told, he followed orders like a robot followed the very commands that had been programmed into it. He would kill anyone. Do anything. He was not afraid of death, pain or suffering. He could undergo any amount of torture. He even had total control over his very body, his pulse, his blood pressure... he wasn't normal in any way. For a world of fighting and violence he truly was perfection, except in one way. His wondrous ability to heal, surviving the logically un-survivable caused him to utterly break down and fail spectacularly as events reached their triumphant conclusion. After the death of the War the death of the one true soldier should logically have followed. But even the loss of the only life he really knew couldn't kill Heero Yuy. It wasn't that simple to end him. It took something very special to blow the life right out of his shell.

That one special blow had proved to come in the form of the same young man who was able to make such a dent in Heero's stoic nature. Duo Maxwell once again made his presence known. During the Wars the American had even managed to worm his way a little bit at least, under Heero's skin. Heero had cared enough to try to warn him away from danger, and had even bothered to deliberately save him on more than one occasion, a task which he would not willingly have performed without an order for anyone else. At the time he didn't really understand why he had the urge to help Duo. He didn't have the time or the inclination to ponder on his feelings though. He didn't really care why it made him feel better on some days to have Duo around. He didn't reflect on why a simple touch of the American's hand to his arm could make him want to smile. He never did smile. But he'd wanted to. He never cared to reflect on how he, on occasions, felt some manner of unusual and misplaced discomfort when Duo left a room, or was away for too long. It mattered so little to him during the Wars, that by the end of it he still understood very little about how to feel anything. Even for someone he'd spent so much time with.

By the end of the Wars Heero was finally forced to recognise that in his inability to actually connect in any way shape or form to another human being lay his one extreme failing, the one point in his perfect repertoire of skills that he was utterly, totally and completely deficient in. People. He just didn't understand people at all, because well, he'd never really wanted to connect with anyone before. There had of course been times when he had had to interact with them to a certain degree, but up until the end of the Wars however everyone he had really shown any attention to had been a soldier. You didn't deal with a soldier like you would a civilian. A soldier was your subordinate, your equal or your superior, and if he or she were none of those things then they were your enemy and had to be destroyed. That wasn't how life was supposed to work though, in a time of peace. You had to be around people... you had to be normal.

It wasn't that he couldn't function, he could function perfectly well. He could go shopping, he could buy clothes and food, he could work a job with no problems, interviews were... interesting as he was a very, very cold individual, but his skills were extensive, and he could of course hack his way into anything, and that had its perks. He could function perfectly well on his own, but therein lie the real problem. There were after all things which required him to actually talk to people. Dealing with cashiers in shops was... a game he never really enjoyed, he was usually rude and didn't enjoy them trying to 'pry into his life' which was how he viewed any needless chitchat. He didn't like to go out anywhere, as well, people might try and interact with him, which again, he certainly didn't want. And for all that he could get a job he never really got on with the other people who worked with him as once again...people. And people were not Heero's strong point. He hated people asking about him, but people wanted to know. He never knew what to say. Their questions all seemed to him to be ridiculous, meaningless drivel. He didn't care what they had to say, he didn't care what they thought... and yet part of him knew that something was definitely wrong with that. That wasn't how people were supposed to behave... so he'd done the only thing he could think of, he'd gone to find someone to help him.

That someone had been Duo Maxwell.

Honestly Heero was surprised that at the time he hadn't had more of a struggle with his pride, but then again, at the time it had been a means to an end that he really wanted to achieve. He needed to be able to slip away into society better, to hide in the crowd, and who better to teach him to do that than his old partner? Who knew more about vanishing in plain sight and slipping by unseen after all?

It hadn't been too hard to find Duo, Heero was fairly adept at that sort of thing, and it had equally been fairly simple to obtain the Americans help... he'd seemed almost... happy... when Heero had asked if he'd come and stay with him for a while and admitted, quite casually, that he needed help. He wasn't good at admitting to imperfections, obviously he wasn't, but when needs must he was willing to do whatever he had to, to keep things on the right track. And he knew too well that he needed to be able to exist within the normal ranks of society.

At first it had seemed rather strange to have his old partner back in his life, but as he had done in the Wars Heero found he quickly settled into the new routine of waking up and Duo just being there, so very, very there. Once again he was forced to realise just how much of an impact, how much of a ripple Duo's very presence caused in his well ordered life... on reflection Duo really had been very, very good for him. Of course, as with any process of adjustment they had argued. He had at first been infuriated by Duo's mess and Duo had raged at Heero for being such a stuck up fucking neat freak with a fucking unhealthy gun problem . They weren't soldiers anymore! They didn't need to be prepared to fly the coup in a second! But obviously after so many years of being who they were, neither of them were going to change. Heero got used to simply having to move Duo's stuff, and Duo got used to, and even became amused by Heero's irritation when he found his own things had been moved in retaliation. They adjusted to one another and they found that honestly it worked rather well.

With an irritated sigh Heero lifted his hands. His mind was still a mess. Images of Duo danced through his thoughts, recollections of the their time together haunting him, taunting him, dancing out of reach and still denying him the rest he would have so greatly liked. Thinking over his past was a bitter pleasure. Of course the memories were pleasant... thinking about anyone who could cause you to care for them had to be pleasant... but the knowledge of how the pleasant thoughts and feelings were brought to a conclusion was never far from his mind... but back to hindsight however, it wasn't as if his thoughts would leave him be.

Duo had been very, very good for him. As Heero was already fairly used to the other mans presence it hadn't been too hard to adjust his life around him. He was resilient to any prying still, of course, and they had a great deal of conflicts... but he was utterly fascinated by the other man... even now he could still remember his confusion, still remember just watching him, unable to take his eyes off of his friend for huge lumps of time. During the war he could never exactly understand it, and even when he tried to explore it a little he couldn't really place it as being anything anything more than just physical, and of course it wouldhave been unacceptable to even think of acting on such a thing while they had been fighting, completely and utterly unacceptable. After the fighting had ended however... what was the harm...?

It hadn't been a quick transition, not in any way, but slowly the levels of physical contact that could be classified as comfortable had built up between them. They'd touched more, just a ruffle of hair here, the brush of a hand against an arm there, but it had been something, and eventually, as the little brushes and contact slowly built up... Duo had kissed him. Almost out of the blue.

He'd been settled in the living room, the television was on but he wasn't really watching it. Instead he'd been watching Duo. It wasn't uncommon, but he was usually a little more subtle. This time however Duo had caught him, right in the act and he'd turned to peer at him in return, his hands falling onto his hips.

_"What are you doing Heero...?" _A curious tone had laced his words.

_"Watching you..."_ What would have been the point in lying?

_"...Why? Am I that interesting? I'm only fucking around with the bookshelf..."_ it was true. He was changing the order around again.

_"I'm not really sure... I think... I just like looking at you."_

_"Really...?" _The answer had seemingly peaked the American's interest and he'd stepped closer, fixing a speculative look on the Asian man. _"You like looking at me...? Just looking at me?"_ He was standing quite close...

_"I'm not sure... I've never... tried anything else..." _He remembered his own doubts... his own confusion... the massive temptation to ask for more.

_"Would you like to...? Would you like to kiss me?"_ Duo had taken away the need to ask.

_"Yes." _What was the point in being coy?

From there it had been simple... a moment later he'd felt a rush of sensation shooting through his body as he was suddenly subject to unaccustomed contact. Duo had walked over to him and swiftly shifted across his lap, swinging one leg over either side of his, slender hands bracing a slender body on his shoulders... Heero's natural inclination had been to push him away... it was contact, he rarely allowed it, but the feeling of lips, slightly rough from the cold weather pressing against his own had dulled that innate response to nothing. Everything from the moment their lips first touched became sensation, and sensations soon became something very important to Heero Yuy.

Though emotions were still mostly lost on him, Heero could cope with desire. Desire was something he had understood even before Duo had starting taking steps to educate him in the ways that 'real people worked'. It wasn't something that the lessons did anything to take away from him either. He found quite quickly that he rather enjoyed the results that desire could have on Duo... they were fairly... physical from then on. To a certain degree there seemed to have been something in both of them that had been building and building and building for a long time, but at the time Heero had no idea how to define it.

After that first kiss however, they'd grown a lot closer a lot more quickly. The walls that he customarily built up around himself to keep people away had been fractured by being so very, very close to Duo. The icy exterior melted to a certain degree, at least for the American that he'd allowed back into his life. Heero had found that with Duo there to give him a nudge, touch his shoulder, flick him in the face or mess up his hair when he was back-sliding he managed to slowly start to force himself out of the tempered steel shell he'd been building around himself for so many years around others as well.

Between the two of them however It had still been physical... very, very physical... but slowly, ever so slowly there had seemed to be something else growing there as well. It popped up at odd moments, when they were cooking together, sometimes Duo would just lean on him, and there it was. They could be sitting and watching TV and just the play of an emotion over the Americans face could summon it. The most common caused of the feelings untimely arrival however was after they kissed. As their lips broke apart Heero would always allow his eyes just to drift over Duo's face and there, touching his lips and his unnaturally beautiful eyes was a smile... a small, perfect genuine smile. Nothing like the grin that he could remember Duo wearing in the war... the grin that had seemed so strange to him, like it was hiding something, no. This smile was different. This smile was real, perfect... and it was his. Duo smiled that smile for him and he could help but just... Heero hadn't liked to think too hard on the feeling, but it was strong, desperate, and slightly scary in the way it just...happened. He seemed to have no control over it... though he wouldn't give a name, the beautiful, soft, content feeling that unsettled him so much... but he had a feeling he knew what it meant.

That however, that lack of control soon seemed to have become a theme for his life, and God he hated it. Some months back he'd started working with the Preventors. It gave him something more taxing than a desk job to do, something more suitable for his mindset and his skills. His fellow pilots worked there as well, Trowa, Wufei and Duo as well. Everything had been going smoothly enough, until suddenly everything went wrong. With a splash of some weird chemical, an unexpected move from a man also holding a knife, Heero had found himself not only pushing Duo to the side, but almost instantly utterly handicapped. It had hurt like hell, though that he had been able to deal with, what he'd not expected had been the sudden and complete blackness that had caked his vision... the last thing he really remembered of that day were a few simple words in Duo's panicked tone.

_"Oh God... Heero! Heero what was that...? What happened... That fucking Bastard! Oh shit, Heero, Your eyes! That... that was aimed at me... if you hadn't... Fuck... He- Heero, can you...?"_

_"I... can't see... I can't see anything..."_

_"...Oh God. Look... it's gonna be fine, okay? It'll be fine. You're always fine... I'll... I'll be there."_

From there... just as everything had changed after the first time they kissed everything had changed again. This time however, instead of changing into something better, things had gone disastrously wrong. Despite running a great many tests and doing a very thorough job of trying to clean him up, the medical and science wings of the Preventors could find out very little about the strange substance that had robbed Heero of his vision, or in fact do anything to repair it. It appeared to be of natural origins, some venom or other, though what exact one they couldn't honestly say, there had been very little information as to what was going on in the test facility where the incident had taken place. To Heero it was a massive blow and it sent him spiralling rapidly back into the shell he'd been so doggedly trying to climb out of.

He obviously couldn't carry on working for the Preventors, he couldn't see... he could even handle a desk job. They ran tests on him every week, sometimes twice; just to see if there was any chance of any improvement. But there never was. Despite Heero's almost inhuman ability to repair himself it had seemed as though there was no chance that he'd be able to come through this particular incident intact. He would never forget how it tore at him, ate away at him, broke him to pieces. It still did to a certain degree, despite the improvements.

All of the things he had been so able to do before were totally alien to him after that day... he was sure he would be able to learn to do them, he was certain that his senses would adjust. But he'd never been hurt in such a seemingly permanent way before. It was... terrifying. He couldn't see. The layout of the apartment if altered even slightly utterly flummoxed him. A chair out of place could trip him. A book on the floor could make him stumble... it was difficult... really difficult. And it was far harder for him to keep from over thinking, as he had no distractions from his own mind aside from Duo. When the braided young man was around Heero found himself clinging to his presence. Duo could help him move around without faltering, he could help him find what he needed and do what he had to... he could read to him, he could touch him and provide support, comfort, and still the passion they had had before. The one thing Heero could never have however, was that smile... that beautiful, perfect little smile.

The more time he spent relying on Duo, living in terror of being alone again, unable to see or really now take care of himself, unable to be anything but a useless weight, terrified of the direction his life had gone in and his lack of control over it, the more he realised how much he needed the other man. How much he fell apart when he wasn't there. He was introverted to the extreme. He had been utterly sucked back into his shell... His moods had become disturbingly unpredictable however, for a change once instigated is hard to really remove. For every minute he clung to Duo there would be another where he'd shove him away and get angry. Suggestions of things they could do often brought out his temper. He couldn't see, how the fuck could he watch a movie? It was hard for Duo to adjust as well, he was sure of that now... but still... Duo had argued back. Sometimes it helped... the dependency was growing however. It had taken over the tender, gentle feelings that had been growing and morphed them into something far stronger... They took over everything. Heero firmly believed that he couldn't do anything without Duo... and he didn't keep it to himself either... he was truly terrified of being alone.

One day however the terrible but yet oddly inevitable finally happened. He was having one of those utterly awful days anyway, he'd stumbled, he'd spilt things, he'd dropped and lost things. He'd placed things carefully yet still been unable to find them and he'd gotten so frustrated that after finding himself disorientated in his own hallway that he'd simply broken. He'd yelled for Duo, and when he'd arrived he'd just talked... but he'd said too much, he knew he'd gone too far but the ball was rolling and the horrible next move was already being made. Duo's words would never, ever leave his mind... one of the curses of having a most excellent memory.

_"Duo... Duo I need you... Duo Please... I need you more than anything... I can't reach you please Duo, I can't keep living without you... you're the only thing I have left, you're everything... you're the most important thing in my life and I can't imagine how it would work without you... I just... I need you so much. You're my everything... my everything...I love you... I just... I love you."_

'_Heero Stop! Please... Please just shut up! I can't do it. I just can't do it. I can't fucking take any more. It's all just too fucking much. You're not even you Heero! I can't look at you like this... not without... Oh God I can't live like this. I can't fucking stand how much killing me! I can't just fucking stay here, having to watch you just fall all to shit every fucking day. I just can't do it... I'm...I'm going Heero. I've just got to go.'_

With that, with those few final words, Duo had vanished from Heero's life. His footsteps had retreated down the hall and that had been that. Heero had simply frozen to the spot. It had happened before he'd even really realised it... and he was alone again, he'd been left behind. Duo had come to represent everything that was secure and safe in Heero's life, but now he was gone... Heero was left with a feeling he had never expected to encounter again... he was left feeling just like a scared little boy, a terrified little orphan with no family, no one to cling to. It honestly shook him right to the very core. It had been at least three, possibly nearing four years since Duo had started to help him try to make a real life after all. And now... now he was gone.

As that bleak, taunting thought danced through Heero's mind he found himself drawing in a deep breath, which left his lungs again a short while later as deep, slow sigh. Mere sections later his dull blue eyes slipped closed, each now as sightless as the milky one behind their lids. His lips however parted, allowing a gentle stream of pained speech to pass them.

"I was just... all I wanted to do was see you again... Couldn't you understand that? I was afraid... I was lost in the dark and I just wanted someone to hold on to. I wanted something to matter... I wanted something familiar." He was aware it was considered a little unusual to talk to ones self, but honestly just now he really couldn't have cared less. "You know... I couldn't help it... I didn't understand what I was dealing with, there were too many... emotions... and I needed you to help me understand them. I wanted to love you... I wanted to know how, but I just couldn't... it's not... natural for me. But you just left me... and I can't forgive you for that Duo. I can't forgive you for letting me think you cared; you told me you'd stay with me... you promised..."

_"Don't... don't leave me... it's never been this dark before... Before, I could always see..."_

_"Don't worry buddy... I'm not going anywhere... I promise, I'm not gonna leave you."_

A slightly shaky sigh slipped past Heero's lips, pre-empting his words. "But you vanished. If you'd have just waited a little longer... just a little longer... it might have been okay. But now Duo, now you'll never know. I don't want you to know and I don't want to love you. You can't love someone you can't forgive."

He'd never tried to find Duo, nor had Duo ever made any attempt to contact him, but Heero had take steps to do one very serious thing. He'd forbidden his friends, and made them swear that none of them would try to contact the American about the changes in his condition. None of them would tell the purple eyed ex pilot that merely two weeks after he'd left, unable to cope, as far as Heero could tell, with what he'd become, one of Heero's eyes had regained a little sight... and then over the following months more and more and more had come back... now, just over a year on one eye was as good as new, and some days there even seemed to be an improvement in the other.

With an irriatted sigh Heero flopped onto his stomach, pressing his face into a pillow. He fucking wished his thoughts would shut up... they were beginning to give him a headache, so once again. There was little he could do but will himself to go to sleep, he had no habit or hobby to help with his, he didn't draw, or sing, and he didn't really walk for just the pleasure of it and he never kept a diary. He never wrote anything down. That had been something Duo would do, and Heero didn't honestly feel that such a thing would help calm his thoughts with such a heavy association. Thus he simply kept his thoughts in his mind, they boiled over occasionally though, a bubbling torrent leaving him a mess of jumbled up recolections, his feelings and emotions swimming around, utterly swamped by his memories. Just like now.

It was times like this when Quatre found himself occasionally able to find something out about Heero Yuy, the real Heero Yuy, not the soldier, but the man who hid behind him. A man who was privately horrified by what he'd done as he grew more human, desperately clinging to the shield that his inhumanity had previously provided him with. A protection from the horrors he had inflicted.

Even as he sat alone in the large living room of his disgustingly opulent house on L4, Quatre knew that if he'd followed Heero he would probably have found out more. He knew a lot by this point, about what Heero Yuy felt, he knew about Duo, and he knew how his leaving had left the Japanese man feeling... he knew it all, but he didn't only know it from one side. He'd heard from Duo as well... on the day that he'd left... that departure had made him so angry... so very, very angry with Duo, though not only for the glaringly obvious reasons.

Of course he was deeply unimpressed with Duo for leaving Heero's side when he clearly needed him so badly, but what he really couldn't forgive was the utterly ridiculous way in which he knew Duo was quite simply breaking his own heart and blaming it all on selfishness. He might not be lying, but he certainly wasn't admitting the whole truth, not even to himself. Quatre just hoped that whatever was keeping Duo away included the mercy of keeping him unaware of the state that Heero was slipping into. He didn't want to think that his friend would knowingly let Heero silently suffer.

You didn't simply leave the one person you depended on for clarity and grounding and simply escape from the ordeal unscathed. Even death in all his depictions had a scythe to lean on, and Duo Maxwell had abandoned his support the day he walked out of Heero Yuy's life. Quatre could remember the conversation so well... but nothing, not a thing could have dragged it from his lips... he'd never told a soul, not even Trowa what Duo had said to him that day. Oh Trowa...He really hoped he could come and visit him soon. He wished he could tell him... but seeing him would at least help.

* * *

End of Chapter 2 - One side of the coin

* * *

_And that would be the end of this rather longer than I had intended it to be chapter. There you have Heero's side of things, the first side of the coin._

_I hope you liked it, it was damn fun to write, but sheeeesh did it take me a while to actually get it all typed up. I have an exam tomorrow as well...I really should have been working. I'll do that now I think. xD_

_If you have a moment, dropping me a quick review to let me know what you think would be ace! I always like to hear from people, and it really good for the old writing drive! Regardless though! I hope to see you all back for chapter three~!_


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